Hi, my name is Carolyn McCoy. Music has been a Muse of mine since forever. I never had a desire to become a musician, but I did feel a deep need to become part of the scene of music makers.
I write about artists, bands or musicians I admire; I write CD reviews of local music I like and I document it all with my own photographs.
My blog is my way to show honor to the people who inspire me to create. For art begets art and one must follow the call of the Muse.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Music is the great song of existence and it conjures forth complex visuals. One could view listening to music as taking a little journey to a psychedelic plane, without the drugs and the subsequent nasty come down. Consider music a good clean high, activating parts of the brain where pretty pictures accommodate the sounds that enter the ears.

I slipped Brindl’s second fabulous CD, Shine, into my stereo, adjusted my earphones to achieve a maximum flow of sound and I pressed play. As the sound flooded my ears and fueled my imagination I found myself transported to a sunny hillside in the middle of the time of year where Spring is transforming into Summer. The sky is blue, the clouds are wispy and I could see rabbits and dragons curling their ears and tails against the meadowy backdrop as the spirit of song gently wafted towards my from the inner recesses of my blissed-out psyche.

Shine is a languid river of beauty trickling past as you sit on this hillside. Shine is a warm breeze flowing over your sun kissed face. Shine is the sun, warm and stunning, bright and vibrant, opening you up to the possibility that someone understands your heart as much as you do and can put into lyrics exactly how you feel when you open your heart to loving yourself, fully and deeply.

Trevalyan Markle, Tenetphoto.com

Brindl’s powerful and heartfelt lyrics are showcased in this disk; the lyrics bring forth her excellent musicianship on the piano and guitar throughout all of Shine. Adding Steve Gardner on Violin (Cullen’s Hounds), guitarist Adam Roach (Jon Keigwin band) and bassist David Solari gives Shine an added depth of jazz and blues undertones that allows Brindl’s smoky-smooth voice to seduce you with a sound that is nothing but pure joy to behold.

“Mercy” open the disk with piano and violin, two instruments that seem innocent enough but when fueled by Brindl’s passionate blues/jazz vocals brings into focus the darker aspects of a relationship. “I am here” and “Rose and a Smile” shed a little joy on the lighter side of relationship.

Simplicity is the key to Brindl’s Shine. But within that simplicity comes a profound understanding of the heart. The simplicity of stark and simple music leaves us open to understand the music how we need to understand it. Brindl leaves the music open for us to determine how it should affect our lives, as all good songwriters can do with their words. Brindl’s voice brings to life the words she wants to convey. Her lilting and uplifting vocals dance and sway and take you on a ride into the clouds, to be stirred and tossed with soft femininity.

Trevalyan Markle, Tenetphoto.com

Recorded locally at A Room With a Vu studio in San Anselmo, California throughout most of 2010, Brindl has taken the words and truths that live in her heart and manifested them into a beautiful album. She bares her soul and tells you her experiences in her life, telling stories of her heart so we can all learn from her mistakes and her personal lessons on love.

The ending track of Shine is “Resolution Year”. A track that I took to mean that with determination and focus on oneself, things can only be amazing. “Resolution year, dissolution of all fear….and I can hear you now…loud and clear….”

Moonmama Tells It Like It Is!

Thanks again to the Fabo-Rama Daniel Rauck for taking my words and making them clean and pretty. OXOXOX

Thursday, November 11, 2010

I am writing to you today in order to let you know that I want to be a writer, that I am a writer. I guess that means I also wish to have a career in writing. What the heck, I may as well apply for a career in something I think I am very good at. Writing. So here I am.

I must let you know that I flunked out of college and therefore have found my own voice without the aid of institutionalized institutions. I write outside the box, as it were. I write with emotion and feeling, plus I can write about anything and make it sound professional and/or pretty. You name it, food, cars, clouds, garbage cans, and shoes, all of it I can make into words to inspire people to read about it.

My main focus and passion is writing about music and my local music scene in Marin County. In my two years as a Loud Voice for my music community, I have befriended over 200 bands and a couple of hundred musicians and industry people of all ranks. I have attended hundreds of local music gigs and taken probably well over 10,000 photos and posted them online on my 6 main blogs, on my Facebook Profile Page and Facebook “Moonmamasmusicalmusings” Fan Page. I have written dozens of reviews and stories on locals bands or their CD’s as well as their live gigs. Plus I am getting airplay for 12 Bay Area bands on a weekly radio show in Brisbane, Australia all because of two boxes of Organic Pop Tarts. I am kind of a mover and a shaker and I am working this business as a writer and photographer in order to fulfill a dream I have had to be a part of the music for well over 20 years.

Writing for me has been a way to find my voice, quell my inner demons and bring my sanity to the forefront of my being. I love writing more than any other talent I have (and that does include making jam and baking cookies). I wish to make a living on this talent of mine, and I wish to work for you. Hence this long and drawn out story on my self-made writing career.

I am sending you 3 links to recent stories I have written on various music oriented shindigs. The first is a profile story on Jeff Pehrson, a lovely friend and also a backup singer for the band Further. The second link is my personal story on how Organic Pop Tarts have made me somewhat of an International Music Promoter in Australia. The third is a profile story on the Sonoma based band Luvplanet (I also did a review of their new disk Luvolution). I will gladly send you the text in WORD format if you wish, but the links to the stories all have photos embedded into them that I myself have taken to give you an idea of my photography skills as well.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Love. Love is what makes the world go ‘round. Love is the subject of many a song, and is quite feasibly the whole reason music even exists. Love is found in pretty much anything and everything; from romance to politics, beverage choices to musical choices. When I happen upon music that gives me love and opens my heart, I am a very happy woman.

Luvplanet, the Sonoma County, California band with a big heart and even bigger sound reaches out to me with messages of positivity, love and some serious shredding. Their 4th album, Luvolution, makes my heart thump with every song I listen to, making me smile and move my legs to the rhythm like I just can’t sit still.

Nicole Sutton-Left
Mark McGee-Right

When I mention a BIG sound, in regards to Luvplanet, I mean that there is a depth to the music, a thickness to the sound that seems to fill me. Each of the 12 songs on Luvplanet's new CD are so dense and juicy with layers of texture. Whether it’s Nicole Suttons soaring and powerful vocals, Mark McGee's vocals and sweltering guitar licks, the solid back beat laid down by Scott McKenzie or Tommy Sisco’s thumping, driving bass, the result is inevitably HUGE.

The stand-out songs on Luvolution tend to be the ones that beckon the listener inside the structures of the songs so that they are encircled in sound and words that give greater understanding of what life is about. Isn’t that how it should be with music? A song should take us places within our own psyche and help us express who we are and why we are alive. At least, that’s what I think. And Luvolution, in both music and lyrics, brings me to that place in my mind where positivity thrives and understanding of the human experience is given light through song.
Tommy Sisco-Left
Scott McKenzie-Right

The opening track, “Luvolution” sets the fast and furious pace for the entire album as Mark McGee’s slicing guitar clears the way for Nicole Sutton’s soaring vocals to start to tell the story of Luvpanet, “Without Warning, it comes in and I feel alive again…”

My Favorite songs on the Album include “Forever”, “Live”, and the track “Be Myself” for it’s inspiring lyrics about creating and vowing for self-love, “All I can I do is be myself, it’s gotta be good enough, no more or less than who I am”. Its words like that that we all need to hear a lot more often.

Luvplanet’s music thrives on the cohesion within the band. Even though most of the songs are written by McGee and Sutton, bassist Tommy Sisco and drummer Scott McKenzie each bring their own style and grace to the songs, so it never feels like Luvolution has the focus on just the primary songwriters, but each member carries their respective weight. On the track “All For You”, one can hear Sisco’s bass warming us up for the mounting pleasure to come within the song. With “Virtual Life” & “C’mon” the pace is set, giving Scott McKenzie’s technical and fluid drumming a chance to shine.

Luvplanet recorded Luvolution at Audio Voyage Studios in Livermore, California with Mark McGee as producer. “Mark is an amazing producer and we have worked with some great engineers at great studios.” Nicole Sutton, on the preparation and recording of Luvolution says, “We try to go in totally prepared but we usually end up having a few songs that we write or finish writing in the studio. That's always fun because it's fresh and exciting to capture the moment….
The (songs) are usually inspired by a feeling or a moment, it could be anything, and then we just try to listen and stay true to the song and what it wants to say.”

One thing that is truly to love about Luvplanet is that every song on Luvolution will inspire singing out with harmonies, even if you are not even a singer. I sometimes feel that I myself am part of the album as it taps into what I think about the world and how love and positivity can go hand and hand with rocking rock and roll.

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Who The Heck Am I?

Hi, my name is Carolyn McCoy. I write about music in all kinds of fun and mischievious ways. From my Groupie Diaries where you get to read my adventures being a Muse to the Music as well as Band Profiles, Stories of Cool Shows and CD reviews of Really Incredible SF Bay Area Bands. Check me out...you won't be sorry...